Tech finds pipeline of new research

Published: Sunday, December 26, 1999

MARY ALICE ROBBINSMorris News Service

AUSTIN Although fierce competitors on the football field, Texas Tech and Texas A&M have teamed up to convince Congress to provide funding for a national pipeline safety research center to be jointly operated by the two institutions.

''The best vehicle to deliver pipeline safety technology is a university-based research center,'' said Ted Wiesner, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Tech.

But despite the fact that pipelines crisscross the country, there is no comprehensive university-based program that focuses on their safety, said Herbert Richardson, director of the Texas Transportation Institute, the Texas A&M division working with Tech on the project.

Because of the importance of pipelines in Texas, Wiesner and Richardson believe this is the state where a research center should be developed.

About 17 percent of the nation's pipelines are located in Texas. The state's 270,000 miles of pipelines exceed the highway miles in Texas, Wiesner noted.

While pipelines can transport a variety of commodities, the bulk of the products moving through pipes in Texas come from the petroleum industry. That includes crude oil, gasoline and natural gas.

Wiesner said the goals of the proposed research center are to improve pipeline safety, reduce companies' costs for operating pipelines and governments' costs for regulating them, and to increase public confidence in their safety.

Data collected throughout the past 13 years by the Office of Pipeline Safety in the U.S. Department of Transportation shows that, on the average, 417 pipeline incidents occur annually in the United States. An average of 23 deaths and 113 injuries occur annually as the result of pipeline accidents.

Both Tech and the transportation institute already are doing pipeline safety research.

Wiesner said Tech and A&M received about $272,000 this year from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Texas Department of Transportation and Koch Industries for three pipeline research projects.

A number of projects already have been proposed if the center is funded, including studying the effectiveness of using ''smart pigs'' to detect cracks in pipelines.

Wiesner said pigs pressurized devices that can be forced through pipes traditionally have been used to clean pipelines. The device becomes a smart pig when a computer and sensors are attached to it, he explained.

Smart pigs are being used to collect data on pipes, and researchers want to find out if they would be useful in spotting cracks, Wiesner said.

The Tech and A&M researchers are seeking $5 million in federal funding to launch the center, which would operate in existing facilities at both institutions. The federal money, which Wiesner hopes will be appropriated for the 2001 fiscal year, would be leveraged with private funds.